nsufferable.
But this he can never be made to see. And the worst of it is that
grumbling is contagious. If we live with him, we shall, sooner or later,
in spite of our dislike of his ways, fall into them; even sinking so low,
perhaps, before the end of a single summer, as to be heard complaining of
butter at boarding-house tables, which is the lowest deep of vulgarity of
grumbling. There is no help for this; I have seen it again and again. I
have caught it myself. One grumbler in a family is as pestilent a thing as
a diseased animal in a herd: if he be not shut up or killed, the herd is
lost.

But the grumbler cannot be shut up or killed, since grumbling is not held
to be a proof of insanity, nor a capital offence,--more's the pity.

What, then, is to be done? Keep out of his way, at all costs, if he be
grown up. If it be a child, labor day and night, as you would with a
tendency to paralysis, or distortion of limb, to prevent this blight on
its life.

It sounds extreme to say that a child should never be allowed to express a
dislike of any thing which cannot be helped; but I think it is true. I do
not mean that it should be positively forbidden or punished, but that it
should never pass unnoticed; his attention should be invariably called to
its uselessness, and to the annoyance it gives to other people. Children
begin by being good-natured little grumblers at every thing which goes
wrong, simply from the outspokenness of their natures. All they think they
say and act. The rudiments of good behavior have to be chiefly negative at
the outset, like Punch's advice to those about to marry,--"Don't."

The race of grumblers would soon die out if all children were so trained
that never, between the ages of five and twelve, did they utter a needless
complaint without being gently reminded that it was foolish and
disagreeable. How easy for a good-natured and watchful mother to do this!
It takes but a word.

"Oh, dear! I wish it had not rained to-day. It is too bad!"

"You do not really mean what you say, my darling. It is of much more
consequence that the grass should grow than that you should go out to
play. And it is so silly to complain, when we cannot stop its raining."

"Mamma, I hate this pie."

"Oh! hush, dear! Don't say so, if you do. You can leave it. You need not
eat it. But think how disagreeable it sounds to hear you say such a
thing."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I am too cold."

"Yes, dear, I know you are. So